Oct. 30th-Nov. 4th, at the International Bar Association's (IBA) event for lawyers held in the U.S. city of Miami, MRU Law School Dean Prof. Lyra Jakulevičienė shared insights about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in law, emerging challenges for ensuring human rights and the possibilities of litigation due to damage caused by the use of artificial intelligence.
In the discussion, there was much attention devoted to the regulation of the use of artificial intelligence. A real race has begun in AI regulatory initiatives - in the European Union, the Council of Europe, and Canada, etc. Although the object of future regulation itself crosses national borders, no global regulation initiatives have been seen yet. Although there is no consensus on the definition of AI, there is agreement on the role of AI in the legal context, which is and should remain only supportive. Automated AI-assisted decision-making without human review poses excessive risks of violating human rights, especially when AI is used in social systems, criminal justice, etc. Eliminating discriminatory manifestations in automated decision-making still remains a technological challenge.
Legal problems of the use of AI are often associated with the violation of privacy and personal data protection. AI affects a wide range of human rights and can have both positive and extremely negative effects on the protection of human rights. When considering the question of liability for damage caused by the use of AI (i.e. who is responsible if the use of AI causes damage: the creator of AI, the user of AI, a lawyer who uses AI in his work, etc.), there is a consensus that traditional principles of product liability no longer apply. There are already a number of cases in different countries regarding damage caused by the use of AI, but such litigation is still complicated and requires special knowledge, which neither courts nor lawyers usually have. The discussion was not complete without the usual questions about the field of fiction, for example, should legal subjectivity be given to artificial intelligence? However, the essential question is whether it is really necessary, for what purpose and whether that purpose cannot be achieved by other means.
The use of AI in the courts is already a good helper to ensure quick and efficient work of the courts, e.g. processing a large amount of information, but only as an aid. It was pointed out that the judicial process requires transparency, clarity of decision-making, equal opportunities for the parties. Decisions made by AI algorithms cannot always be explained, transparency is even impossible in certain cases. So, on the one hand, AI helps to solve the complexity of modern legal challenges, but on the other hand, it also brings a lot of complexity.
In the opinion of Dean Prof. Jakulevičienė, lawyers should no longer be surprised by terms such as algorithm law, robot law, etc. Lawyers need to be educated on this topic, because: a) time-consuming work that does not require high qualifications can be done by AI, but you need to know how to use this help; those who use it will work better and faster than those who do not; b) due to the increasing number of cases regarding damage caused by the use of AI, in order to litigate effectively, it is necessary to know how AI works; c) the lawyer may have the duty to inform the client about all the options for protecting his interests, including the expected DI.
This year's event in Miami (USA) focused on the topics of law and sustainability, law and artificial intelligence, and the assessment of legal issues, especially international responsibility, related to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The event attracts about 6,000 lawyers from different regions of the world every year. Next year, the world meeting of lawyers will be held in Paris (France).
During her visit to the USA, the Dean of the Law School, Lyra Jakulevičienė, met with the management of the Florida International University Law School to discuss areas of cooperation in the field of legal studies and research.
More about the event can be found here.
